by Kim Callinan
I have struggled with my weight my entire life. My first weight loss attempt was when I was 11 years old. I went to Weight Watchers camp and lost 15 pounds. I kept it off for almost a year. I gained it back… and then some. I repeated this same pattern every few years of my life until at 38, I was 100+ pounds overweight and “officially” obese.
While the height-weight charts showed me as being “obese,” in my mind, I was just “pleasantly plump.” When I looked in the mirror I saw a curvaceous woman who could stand to lose a few, but I certainly wasn’t obese. I was convinced the height-weight charts were “off” for my build. As long as I avoided pictures — which I did at all costs — I could continue to live in my own reality.
I had lost and gained weight so many times that my motivation to try was low. I was always “reasonably” active and ate “reasonably” healthy, so it just didn’t seem “fair.” The vicious cycle of deprivation followed by eventual failure had led to frustration and resignation. Who wants to work hard at something they only get worse at?
What led me to change?
It was a cruise that finally got me to take action. My obese father could barely walk to the dining hall. My 10-year-old son was gorging himself on food at the many opportunities, and I decided that I needed to take immediate action. As a public health professional, I knew the best way to help my son and reverse the cycle of obesity was to help myself first. I needed to get in control of my own health and eating. Not an easy task, but one I was determined to tackle.
I kicked myself into high gear and began my weight loss journey. At some point along the way, my primary care physician, Dr. Marshall, encouraged me to enroll in the program she was offering through Women’s Wellness Partners. It was expensive. But (after some hemming and hawing) I figured my health was worth the cost.
I had been in dozens of weight loss programs over the years. I work in public health. I have translated the dietary guidelines into consumer materials. My issue was not a lack of education about how to lose weight. Yet, I was morbidly obese.
I went into the class convinced that there was not much I could be taught about nutrition or physical activity, but I hoped that it would help me address the emotional triggers of my eating.
What did I learn?
I fortunately did learn how to better handle my stress eating. However, I was pleasantly surprised to be transformed by the nutritional information that I learned.
One of the most memorable lessons was the simple calculation they did to demonstrate how easy it was to gain 5 pounds in a year. We spent a full class on this. So I’m not going to do the demonstration justice, but hopefully you’ll get the drift.
It’s fairly common knowledge that 3,500 calories equals a pound. But do you know how many extra calories you need to eat in a day to gain 5 pounds in a year?
336.
That’s right: a 5-pound weight gain in a year amounts to just 336 extra calories a day. That’s a bag of M&M’s at lunch; a Snickers bar in the car on the way home after work; OR french fries with dinner. It doesn’t take much.
In that moment it became clear to me how I could eat “reasonably” healthy and still be 100 pounds overweight. I had gained it gradually over the past 15 years. Five or ten pounds a year, and here I was.
The pantry makeover was another favorite. One evening, we received the assignment: Go home and rid your house of “fake foods” — products that contain artificial trans fats, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, food dyes and a host of other ingredients that serve no nutritional purpose and likely cause weight gain.
While this seemed extreme, and the idea of saying goodbye to some of my favorites that I had always believed to be reasonably healthy (Diet Coke and 100 calorie packs to name a few), I realized that to get different results I needed to try a different approach. The science seemed compelling, and I had very little to lose (or a lot to lose depending on how you looked at it). Plus, if I didn’t work, I could always revert to my old habits.
So, I went home. I took out a big black garbage bag — the kind that you use for the lawn — and started tossing. By the time I was done going through my cabinets, I had almost no food left. What did I find?
Exactly what they promised I would. When I ate “whole foods” I felt full and satisfied. When I ate fake foods, I craved more foods
From that point, my mission was to educate — my husband, my parents, my friends, my kids, and anybody who would listen — about fake foods. I felt so passionate about making these changes that I became a certified LEAN coach myself (not for career advancement, but merely to be better educated).
My kids learned how to read a nutrition label, and when I heard stories from their friends’ parents about how my child wouldn’t eat a snack because it had “some type of a bad oil in it,” I smiled knowingly.
Why did I write this blog?
When I first considered writing this, my immediate thought was, “I can’t write a blog about my weight loss journey until I have reached my goal. I still have 30 pounds to go. What if somebody meets me and sees that I’m still pudgy? What if I never reach my goal? What if I gain it back?”
Then, I took a breath and said to myself, “Remember Kim, It’s about progress, not perfection.”
If sharing my story helps provide one person with a nugget that helps them with their weight loss efforts, writing this blog will be worthwhile. And if one person takes the time to share their ideas, tips or suggestions with me on how to take my final 30 pounds off, that’s even better. Share with us below!
Kim Callinan is a former participant in Women’s Wellness Partners’ Weight and Wellness Group and a senior vice president at IQ Solutions, a health education firm. Read her other blogs here.
